The RUSSIA EXPO hosted a meeting of "Bolshaya Peremena" community participants

On April 11, a Community Day was held at the International RUSSIA EXPO as part of a three-day marathon dedicated to the start of the new season of the All-Russian contest "Bolshaya Peremena" (lit. “Big Change/Big School Break”) - the flagship project of the "Movement of the First". The project is co-organized by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh). The contest is part of the presidential platform "Russia - Land of Opportunity". "Bolshaya Peremena" is held with the support of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

The program of the day was dedicated to community participants - schoolchildren, vocational education students, hobby clubs, and teacher-mentors. The central event was a visionary discussion on the topic "Interactive learning formats - best practices of knowledge transfer to the youth audience".

"Over five years, the All-Russian contest "Bolshaya Peremena" has turned into a unique ecosystem of children's self-realization, growth and development, and has become a space of friendship for millions of like-minded people. "Bolshaya Peremena" is not limited only to the contest. Outside the season, children continue to gain knowledge and develop skills, seek and find their vocation and business to their heart's content. For the community we organize unique excursions, lectures and masterclasses from famous experts from different spheres of activity. This opens up exceptional opportunities for children to determine their future direction in education or career," said Natalia Mandrova, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Movement of the First, Director of ANO "Bolshaya Peremena".

The All-Russian contest "Bolshaya Peremena" has been organized since 2020. During this time, it has already been joined by more than 5 million participants: pupils of 5 - 10 grades, students of colleges and technical schools, teachers-mentors, as well as schoolchildren from foreign countries. In contrast to traditional subject Olympiads, it is not academic performance that is evaluated here, but knowledge and skills that will be useful for pupils and students in the modern world. This is primarily the ability to find non-standard solutions in complex situations, creative thinking and, of course, the ability to work in a team.

"All those works that we are proud of, first, are student works, and second, were all created in teams. That is, it is no longer the time when some scientist with a beard sat alone in a robe. Now any product you get is a product of your teamwork. And what is teamwork? You must be friendly, be able to listen to each other, take the best from many people and bring it to fruition. And the most important thing is that when everything works out, you should be proud of it together. And this is what should be realized in the universities of the future," emphasized Sergei Salikhov, First Vice-Rector of MISIS Institute.

The participants of the Community Day discussed the prospects and challenges facing the sphere of education and upbringing. The experts shared their vision of the industry's development, talked about innovative approaches and technologies, suggested strategies for achieving sustainable development and even talked about how the process of educating those who teach is built.

"We have noticed that informal educational programs are very important to teachers, because they have formal professional development, of course, but in order to learn how to create projects, to be a good speaker, be able to "turn on" a youth audience, to answer complex questions correctly - to get such skills they come to us. And we see how teachers open up and change. After all, in a sense, they envy kids who have educational programs and opportunities to communicate with various champions, artists, scientists. And when they go through our programs, they can feel themselves in the shoes of schoolchildren and students, and it's really cool. In the first days of our work the teachers who left us said: "It was like I had visited Artek for adults," said Anton Serikov, Deputy Director General for Educational Activities of the Russian Society "Knowledge", Director General of ANO "Mashuk Knowledge Center".

Lectures, masterclasses, mini-quizzes, business games and other educational and cognitive activities were also held for the "Bolshaya Peremena" participants and teachers-mentors.